Friday, April 20, 2007

The Interview

In what will be a brief interlude in the (thankfully) short series entitled "What Groanin' Jock Did On Holiday", I'm going to take part in a meme that I first encountered over at Ole Blue The Heretic's blog.

Basically, it takes the form of an interview, with the last person on the chain picking five questions. So, here are Ole Blue's questions and my answers:

1. If you could control your destiny, what would your destiny be? To live a long(ish) life in good health with my family and good friends and that, when the end comes, that it be quick and painless.

2. What is it about your life that you love? Living happily with my wife in our wonderful house and knowing how lucky I am to live where I do and in the style that I do.

3. What experience made you most humble? Travelling around South East Asia made me realise just how well off we are in the west. In Vietnam, we met children and made their day by stopping to talk to them and play football with them. In Thailand, we spent a few days trekking through the jungle north of Chiang Mai, where girls are expected to be pregnant with their second child by the time they are 17. It made me realise that, in comparison, we were just spoilt rich kids unwilling to grow up, having a great time touring countries far less wealthy than our own.

4. Where do you wish you could be right now? I'm tempted to say in bed, as it's only 8.15am and I'm in the office and still feeling the strain after playing football last night. But in the grander scheme of things, the one place I've visited that I love most is New York City, and more specifically Central Park. If I could pick somewhere I haven't been, I'd be tempted to say Tokyo.

5. If you were a child again what would you want to do the most? Enjoy the freedom of the summer holidays - a seemingly unfillable seven-week period that can be devoted almost entirely to playing football.

If anyone would like to be interviwed, here's how to keep the meme going:

Leave me a comment saying "Interview me." I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions. You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions, and let me know that you answered. If you don't have a blog, but would still like to play, I can send you the questions, and you can answer them in the comments. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1) If you could meet any living person, who would it be and why?Well, if there IS, as the saying goes, someone for everyone,I'd like to meet my someone, even if we meet and I can't stand the sight of them - at least it'd be over and done with and I'd be put out of my misery. Then I'd like to meet the person who said 'There's someone out there for everyone' and punch them square in the face. Or Vince Vaughn, who I wouldn't punch, but who could in my tiny little mind, be my someone.

2) Where is your favourite place in the world?Without sounding too much of a Nat I have to say Scotland. My friend and I went on a trip round the Highlands a few years ago, taking in Aviemore, Fort William and Crianlarich. The highlight was sitting 3/4 of the way up Ben Nevis looking down on the world, and then spending the evening in the bunkhouse, watching visiting Norwegian musicians play an impromtu gig and drinking pints by the fireside.

3) If your CD player was to break with one album stuck inside it, and that was the only music you could hear from now until the day you die, what CD would you wish it to be?It would have to be Barenaked Ladies: Disc One - All Their Greatest Hits. I'm still recovering from their Carling Academy gig last week. Legends in their lifetime!4) If you could go back in time to change one thing that happened in your life, what would you change?I'm a great believer in fate, so I wouldn't want to change anything really. But if I HAD to, I might have applied for the SHOUT! training scheme at DC Thomsons when I was 16 instead of going to college. I might have been at Heat towers by now, or getting Kate Thornton's job on X Factor. But then again, the NHS wouldn't be preparing for their next super nurse would they!

5) Why has blogging become so popular?For the writer it's a great chance to vent their frustrastions and feelings to anyone who wants to listen, and for the reader, it's yet another distraction from the daily letdown that is your workplace.